In This Hospitable Land

by Jr. Lynmar Brock

  Pacing uncontrollably, André couldn’t stand it anymore. He strode to Alex and shook him by the shoulder. Before Alex forced his eyes open André said, “I have to go to Le Salson to see Denise, if not to rid my mind of what happened yesterday at least to gain some distance.”

  Alex sat up massaging his scalp and pounding temples. “Yes, well,” he mumbled, “I want to see Geneviève too. But not yet I guess. Damn it! I need to be with her and I will!”

  André put on his shoes and coat and pulled his dark blue beret to one side because he thought it looked jauntier that way—though “jaunty” was the last way he expected to feel anytime soon.

  André hiked briskly, purposefully, up the path, protected by the encroaching night. A wearying hour and a half later he approached the house he now knew so well. Mercifully the light was still on.

  When the door flew open and André moved to step inside, Denise came right out, closed the door behind her, and, before André could question her, wrapped herself in his arms and placed her lips on his in a kiss that lasted a long, wonderful time. At its end they clung closely to one another.

  After a great silence and a profound sigh, Denise murmured, “I’ve missed you so.”

  “And I’ve missed you more than I can say.”

  André kissed her again trying to imply a great deal. Another long moment passed before Denise gently released herself from his embrace, took him lovingly by the hand, and led him to the nearby stone wall.

  He lifted her up onto it then sprung up beside her. The dark stones were cool, slowly losing the last of the sun’s heat. Side by side husband and wife luxuriated in each other’s presence and the sense of peace supplied by the early-autumn night in the Cévennes.

  Much as André wished to unburden himself, he couldn’t utter a word about the Vignies’ execution. Even as waves of guilt disturbed his mind and spirit, it seemed wiser to suffer in silence than to draw poor Denise into his moral morass.

  Fortunately she chattered away lightly, brightly. “Ida and Christel get along so splendidly now, perhaps because Cristian demands so much of me that Christel has learned to turn to Ida as her chief comforter and protector—a role Ida has taken on with amazing grace and facility. They play make-believe endlessly—in the house, in the enclosed courtyard, even behind the wall of the terrace that runs alongside the garden. They’re sad that all the sugar is gone and we need our honey to make bread and to sweeten our tea. But their imaginations have grown so vivid they easily substitute fantasy sugar for the real thing. Christel even planted a small row of wild seeds she claims are special sugar seeds which will grow up to be candy trees. Ida plays along, helping to water and weed. Oh, and Cristian has begun to talk! Only a few words and only one at a time, but he’s only sixteen months old. That’s fairly remarkable, especially for a male child.”

  “I bet his first word was ‘maman,’” André said, grinning with pride in both his wife and son. How he wished he would soon have a chance to hear Cristian’s prattle.

  “Yes, it was,” Denise laughed. André thought he saw her blush in the little light provided by the moon and stars. “But listen to me going on and on about trivial homely things when I know you have far greater matters on your mind.”

  Charmed and delighted by the activities of his son and daughters as never before, André was glad to be distracted, however briefly, from the terrible tale he held within himself. He said, “How much the war has changed me. It’s true that I missed the first steps and words of both our girls without giving it a thought, but now…Now I care very much about every aspect of our children’s lives. Every day it becomes clearer it’s life itself that matters most in this world.” Then he thought, but did not say, Especially after yesterday.

  “I love you so much,” Denise said spontaneously. It was as if she had read André’s freighted mind and couldn’t wait to mouth what he most needed to hear.

  Stretching herself to lean up against him, Denise rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder. She may have spoken of love this way only rarely but André never expressed his deepest emotions so simply or directly. He wished to now but found he could not. Thankfully he knew his wife understood and had no need for him to give utterance to what he felt for her.

  Long before he wished to, André felt compelled to say, “I have to go.”

  “I know.” Though melancholy, Denise had long since learned and accepted that this was the way things had to be for now. There was no point in objecting.

  André dislodged himself from the stone wall and helped his wife down. They kissed again and André hugged her passionately. Almost suffocatingly.

  Full of longing and regret, André released Denise and walked back up the path. At the bend of the road he stopped and turned, unsure whether his wife watched from the Bastide house or could see him if she did. He waved, hoping she would at least sense and appreciate the gesture just as he trusted she had sensed and appreciated all he could not say.

  He had hoped this visit would lighten his emotional load, but the farther he got from his family the heavier his heart felt.

  In the bright sunlight of Monday morning, Denise felt exhilarated as her children played in the Bastides’ courtyard. Still glowing with the memory of André’s unexpected visit, she imagined she could feel the imprint of his touch, his clasp, his kiss. But she was also painfully aware something troubled her husband, something far beyond the now-habitual worries.

  Then a sound froze her heart and propelled her to move protectively toward her offspring. A man’s voice was so unusual that Denise couldn’t help but be alarmed. She warned her daughters to play quietly and they obeyed since both were old enough to understand their presence needed to be kept secret. Little Cristian was too young but his sisters hushed him as necessary. Ida especially had a gentle way with him.

  Feeling foolish, Denise suddenly remembered what day it was and realized the male voice belonged to the postman paying his weekly visit. He wasn’t the mailman she knew from La Font but Irene and Ernestine had vouched for his trustworthiness.

  Curious, since the conversation sounded livelier than usual, Denise tiptoed back into the house and toward the front door that stood partially ajar. Listening from behind it she heard the letter carrier say, “Sometimes there’s a letter inside, sometimes it’s a rope.”

  “A rope?” Irene asked.

  “So they get the message and hang themselves,” Ernestine lisped.

  “They send them through the mail?” Irene continued incredulously.

  “Sometimes,” the mailman allowed. “Sometimes it’s hung in a tree or over the front door.”

  “Good,” Ernestine spat. “Those traitors deserve what they get. Why, some of them tell the authorities where young men have hidden themselves, young men who believe they have something better to do with their lives besides sacrifice them for the benefit of Nazi dogs.”

  Irene said, “I still don’t understand where they get those little wooden coffins.”

  Now Denise understood. Since early summer, rumors had circulated about collaborators receiving miniature coffins. No one knew precisely where they originated but their message was clear: We know you inform on resisters. We know you traffic in black market goods.

  “Carpenters make them,” Ernestine shot back. “Carpenters the true French can trust.”

  “Have you heard the latest?” the mailman asked excitedly. “About the Vignies?”

  “What?” Ernestine demanded. “Who?”

  Denise wracked her memory but—nothing.

  “Maurice Vignie, a shopkeeper from Vialas, and his teenage son. Both shot dead.”

  After an extended silence Irene said, “Terrible. Think of the poor wife and mother.”

  Ernestine said sharply, “Ask yourself what they did to deserve it.”

  “No one deserves such a thing.” Irene sounded heartsick.

  “The village is full of Milice,” the mailman said, “asking whether anyone heard or saw anything suspicious.”

&nbs
p; “You think the Resistance killed him?” Irene asked in a hoarse anxious whisper.

  “Has to be,” her mother clucked triumphantly. “The Maquis.”

  Denise’s heart misgave her. When the postman left and the Bastides stepped back inside Denise stood stock-still in the hallway.

  “It’s okay now,” Ernestine said gently, a look of concern creasing her brow. “You really don’t need to be afraid of the mailman anymore. He’s harmless, though he does talk too much.”

  But Denise wasn’t afraid of the letter carrier. She was afraid of what her husband had to do with the Vignies and what it was doing to him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE MAQUIS

  SEPTEMBER 27, 1943

  Despite intense, concentrated labor, a strange air of peace prevailed at Le Tronc in the weeks following the Vignie killings. Max paid a quick visit to tell the Guins and Sauverins the camp at Le Crespin had been abandoned, its location having been disclosed to the Gestapo after all. The Maquis had established a new camp at Les Bouzedes and if the Guins had any more food to share or the Sauverins ever needed to go there…Nothing was said of the Vignies nor were the brothers asked to participate in another mission.

  It wasn’t until October that the postman brought word of the final liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto that past June after a months-long uprising by incarcerated Jews that had shown Poland and the world that even the most wretched and abused could display the greatest courage and dignity, engaging in daring acts of defiance. The Sauverins and Guins also learned of that summer’s Allied victories in Africa, the subsequent invasion of Sicily, and the overthrow and arrest of Mussolini—all very encouraging if insufficiently close to home.

  André continued his weekly visits to Le Salson, always a source of comfort and renewal. And a message finally arrived from Pastor Donadille freeing Alex to visit L’Herm.

  That very evening Alex shouldered his rifle and went off to see his wife and daughter for the first time in seven long months. Pierre Guin had secreted them on the second floor of an old schoolhouse where they were reasonably comfortable but had to be extremely careful during school days not to show themselves or make any noise. It was a struggle for Geneviève and Katie only to speak in low whispers, always to duck beneath the windows and carefully to avoid stepping on floorboards they knew might squeak.

  Traveling in daylight was risky so Geneviève could only see her son infrequently at night. Though they never spoke, it was helpful if never enough to gaze upon her sleeping Philippe.

  Despite his isolation Philippe Sauverin was better off living with the large Ours family than his own. Everyone was told that Philippe was a cousin whose mother was from French-run Algeria. This made Philippe the only Sauverin not in hiding at all times. He was free to interact with the village children, to run and jump in the fresh air, and to play without restraint.

  Alex wished he could see the boy too and decided to stay in L’Herm for a few days. Léon would curse him but he and Geneviève had so much lost time to make up.

  André was startled to find himself with evenings alone. Glad of the opportunity to think and write, he was also surprised and delighted to discover among the Guins’ small stock of prized possessions Roux the Bandit, the first substantial modern literary work in Cévenol that Suzanne Maurel had strongly recommended three years earlier. Sometimes André had trouble deciphering the patois but Yvonne was always happy to help.

  Despite Suzanne’s suggestion, André did not view himself and Chamson’s Roux as having much in common, but he could certainly appreciate their shared much-derided devotion to pacifism. This Roux (modeled perhaps on a member of Ernestine’s late husband’s family?) suffered far greater privations than André Sauverin, making André most grateful for the warmth of his little fire and the comparative comfort of his bed of fresh straw. And he found reassuring resonance in this passage about Roux’s criminal avoidance of military conscription during the Great War: “‘If Roux had wished to hide on a farm, the gendarmes would have known nothing about it, for nobody would have come to betray him…’”

  But reading this book in the wake of the Vignie assassinations increased André’s confusion about his deeply held beliefs about the sacred nature of life and the foolish notion that killing of any sort can serve a greater good and lead to better times. These beliefs contrasted strongly with the obvious need to do something in the face of overt evil.

  Over dinner one night the Guins told him how disgusted the Great War had made them and how horrified they had been throughout the thirties watching the present war coming. So many of the French had sworn they would never be drawn into yet another pointless death-dealing war. But none had done anything to prevent it.

  Back in the barn, André was fascinated to discover a counterexample to Roux in Chamson’s novel—the pastor of Anduze: “He did not want to fight, either, because of conscientious reasons. But he went just the same, like the others, in order not to put himself in the wrong…without taking a gun.” André could not help but ponder deeply this model of thoughtfulness, bravery, fortitude, and sacrifice. Could he too be bold and determined enough to put himself in harm’s way in order to serve without picking up a weapon?

  Yet he also couldn’t help thinking of the way Einstein had put aside his longstanding pacifism in the face of the despicable. André began to feel a strong desire to stand his ground and defend his adopted country, almost convinced that though the philosophy of the Quakers’ Peace Testimony was assuredly worthy of the devotion of his life, there were still horrors, there was still evil, and that even the moral, peace-loving man must feel compelled and right to fight.

  What a conundrum. If Max Maurel and all the other resistants jeopardized their lives to shelter and defend André and his family, how could André fail to join them? Yet he remained convinced any form of military action was wrong. Simultaneously he knew that when bloodshed inevitably got closer still, he would have to find a way to contribute to the Maquisards more meaningfully. Not to take substantive action might well mean allowing oneself and those one cared about most to be subjugated and possibly destroyed. On the other hand wasn’t there an internal contradiction between joining the fight to gain the freedom necessary to worship as driven by a spiritual insight and a spiritual insight that led one to reject war?

  The resolution of André’s conflict was taken out of his hands after Alex finally returned. Two Milice showed up at Le Tronc and went to the farmhouse searching for Léon. Terrified, Yvonne let slip that her husband was out in the far fields working the sheep.

  Laboring at Léon’s side André and Alex looked up and spotted the distinctive uniforms. Fearful for their lives they knew better than to bolt, for to run away would declare their status as renegades from the government. Instinctively they felt it was better to assert their innocence by stolidly laboring on as would any hard-bitten Cévenol farmer—like Léon.

  Their instincts saved them. The Milice hadn’t come to capture them but to demand of Léon how much land he had and how much wheat that land could produce so that they would know how much would be available to feed the German army after the harvest. Though Léon underestimated by a substantial margin, his false answers satisfied the urban thugs. Profoundly ignorant of agriculture, they went away happy.

  But now that the Milice had found their way to Le Tronc, André and Alex knew the time had come to leave and join the Resistance for the war’s duration. They would miss the Guins but they knew it could mean their lives if they didn’t move still more deeply underground.

  The lookout recognized the Sauverins from Le Crespin and with a quick salute, let them pass. A little larger than Le Crespin, Les Bouzedes had its own layout and landscape but the buildings were similar and the faces mostly familiar.

  The brothers made their way unremarked until Max raced over. “I wondered how long it would be before you came here!” he cried, embracing them and planting kisses on their cheeks.

  The Sauverins explained what had brought them—Ale
x with bitterness, André with resignation.

  “That’s bad,” Max acknowledged with a long, low whistle, leading the brothers to a big barn and sitting beside them on a sack of potatoes. “But I’m not surprised. We’ve had more and more reports of the Milice and the Gestapo going farther and farther afield to fulfill Germans needs. And now we have a new chief.”

  “New chief?” Alex had barely gotten used to the old one.

  “Roger. A man of much experience. You’ll feel comfortable in his hands.” Max leaned back and pointed at the brothers’ rifles. “Have you practiced?”

  “With Léon’s help,” André replied tentatively. “But I’m still intimidated.”

  Alex snorted. “That’s because shooting can kill.”

  André shot Alex a fierce look.

  “Let me take you to meet the new chief,” Max enthused.

  After a few minutes’ wait the three were ushered into the new command post. Half-hidden by the large table that served as his desk, tall, thin Roger Boudon was about thirty-five years of age. His angular face showed signs of strain and his two-day growth of brown beard made him look worn. Two strong lines creased his brow and the beginnings of small crow’s-feet were visible at the corners of his piercing eyes. As he rose to shake the Sauverins’ hands they could see the pistol he wore in the thick leather belt strapped around his narrow waist.

  After Max’s rapid-fire detailing of the Sauverins’ background and previous involvement with the Resistance, the chief welcomed them warmly to Les Bouzedes. Then he excused himself and asked Max to show them to their new quarters: a cramped room in one of the outbuildings.

  This will do, André told himself, setting his little sack down on one of the two slender cots, though it makes the Guins’ barn seem like a mansion.

  Roger Boudon had brought a new level of organization and discipline to these Maquisards. The camp’s inhabitants were divided into three teams charged with different responsibilities: the maintenance team gathered firewood and potable water, cleared and cleaned and cooked; the security team manned guard posts and ran perimeter patrols; the military instruction team dealt with guerrilla tactics, group combat, and the study of arms and explosives. Working with Max, the instruction team also saw to first aid and safety procedures.